Recently I visited Florence to see the many great works of art there. I visited all the usual places; the Uffizi, the Bargello, St. Marcos, the Brancacci Chapel, and so on. I saw many well-known works, both sculpture and painting. On the third day of the visit there was a general strike in Italy and all the museums were closed, so I decided to walk over to San Salvi to see whether I could get in to see Andrea Del Sarto's fresco of the Last Supper. I was allowed into the museum, in fact I was the only person there for most of my visit so I was able to relax in front of the fresco and take it in. As I was looking at the painting, I began to think about the symbolic significance of it and in particular the significance of Judas. At the Last Supper, Jesus says, 'one of you will betray me'. The disciples ask, 'Lord, who is it' and Jesus replies ' He it is, to whom I shall give a sop, when I have dipped it'. This is the moment that is captured in the painting. It struck me that a betrayal that is entered into so consciously is not really a betrayal and then I saw how necessary Judas is to the whole unfolding of the Christian myth. I could see that Judas represents that which urges one to overcome selfish concerns and be prepared to suffer for the sake of others. Judas as an aspect of the psyche of any spiritual aspirant is that which betrays the ego into self - overcoming and its own death. Judas is the spiritual conscience that will not settle for less than spiritual death and rebirth. This is a bad thing from the point of view of the lower self and the mundane world. But spiritually Judas is positive and necessary. Judas is that aspect of you which will not shy away from the truth just because it is going to bring humiliation and suffering. On an everyday level the decision to pursue a spiritual path to the detriment of career prospects, for instance, is a kind of betrayal of mundane abilities. I had never really thought about the Christian story before. The literalistic indoctrination of my childhood didn't encourage thinking and having rejected Christianity, it never occurred to me to look to it for spiritual assistance. When I went to the Uffizi I began to look at other paintings in terms of the symbolic significance of the images as indications of spiritual truths and back in London I carried on this line of thought with a few visits to the National Gallery. The Annunciation is clearly depicting that initial moment of vision or realisation which we call samyak dhristi (Perfect Vision). From this vision, out of the purity of this vision, is born a new consciousness, what I would call the spiritual ego or the will-to-the-Ideal. Initially this will-to-the-Ideal is a tender infant that requires care and attention as so many paintings of the Madonna and child show. The Madonna is the vision or imagination or intuition which nourishes and protects the infant will until this is strong enough to take on the arduous task of its own transcendence. In Botticelli's Annunciation in the Uffizi, the Virgin is caught in this moment of realisation. It is as if she has been reading and suddenly the import of the words opens up a whole new vision of existence and this vision is symbolised by the Angel, traditionally a messenger from heaven. In an earlier Annunciation by Martini the angel is calling to Mary. This is the call that we all hear at some time in our lives, a call to higher things, a call to follow our ideals. This moment of the call is a tense moment in the painting. The call is resisted by the Virgin to some degree or it shocks her. The Virgin holds the book but the truth has leapt from the book and become a frightening reality. The call is a demand that must be answered or great suffering will follow; the suffering of an unfulfilled life. If we bury our ideals our soul shrivels. The birth of Jesus, the Nativity, is usually depicted as happening in a cave or stable with animals present as well as angels and shepherds. From a Buddhist perspective one could see these as symbolising the animal realm, deva realm and human realm respectively. The animals or nature have to be present. Nature cannot be excluded from the spiritual quest, it has to be there and in support of the spiritual endeavour. And of course the angels and shepherds symbolise the path through humanity to divinity. In Botticelli's depiction of the Nativity in the National Gallery (London), there are also devils being cast out. Purity casts out impurity. Skillfulness casts out unskillfulness. Awareness casts out ignorance. The adoration of the Magi is a very popular image with artists. Fra Angelico has painted a beautiful fresco of it in San Marcos and there is a very interesting tondo version by Botticelli in the National Gallery. The Magi are the kings from the East who bring gifts and worship the infant Jesus having found their way by following the star of Bethlehem. Earthly power takes its rightful place at the feet of the spiritual and puts its wealth at the disposal of the higher Ideal. Our mundane talents and powers have to serve the spiritual Ideal and give full recognition to the centrality of that Ideal. In Boticelli's painting we see in the centre the Virgin and child with the kings kneeling and offering their gifts and a circle of their followers standing around the scene. Behind are the ruins of a pagan temple and in the foreground is a noisy crowd of people attending to all sorts of affairs and completely ignoring the central event. The pagan ruins take up over one third of the painting and are quite imposing and over -arching, the past can not be ignored, it contains the seeds of the future. The vast majority of people in the painting are not giving any recognition to the Christ child, they are unaware of the significance of what is happening. Only an elite few, the foreign kings, are fully and consciously recognising and honouring the Ideal. In the early stages of any spiritual journey the forces of the psyche are fragmented and mundane concerns and desires occupy many mind-streams, but when there is sufficient focus at the centre of our being on what is vital then the spiritual ego can grow. If ten percent of our being is focussed on the will-to-the-Ideal and honouring and worshipping and supporting it, then it does not matter that the other fragmented and distracted ninety per cent is off in pursuit of bubbles blowing in the wind. However, in spite of this nurturing and adoration, the will-to-the-Ideal is tested. The Slaughter of the Innocents is a harrowing image and the spiritual ego in the early stages of spiritual life has to be protected from the overwhelming power of external forces. Behind the main altar of Santa Maria Novella in Florence one section of Ghirlandaio's excellent fresco shows the terror and cruelty of the soldiers snatching the infants from their mothers and slaughtering and dismembering them. This is an extraordinarily powerful and terrifying image for the forces at work in the world to destroy the nascent spiritual will. At this early stage the only protection is flight. The flight into Egypt shows Joseph and Mary with the infant, using a donkey for transport, making their escape. Egypt is the place of protection, a symbol for spiritual practice and spiritual community; all that protects the newly born spiritual ego from destruction by external forces. External forces includes the ninety per cent of our being that is immersed in greed, ill will, and spiritual ignorance and therefore in league with all that is inimical to spiritual life. After the flight into Egypt, we get very few images of the life of Jesus until the baptism. This is as it should be. Until the spiritual will is strong enough it has to be protected and trained. The baptism of Jesus is another frequently painted image. There is a lovely example from Giotto in Padua and in the Uffizi there is one by Verrochio assisted by the young Leonardo da Vinci. In the National Gallery there is the lovely image by Piero della Francesca. The baptism seems to carry forward the symbolism of the Annunciation to another stage. Again there is a moment of realisation. The earlier realisation made the Ideal manifest and gave birth to a new consciousness, the spiritual ego. This new realisation is about the relationship of the spiritual ego to the rest of the world. Compassion becomes uppermost and the spiritual death that is entailed by compassion becomes more obvious. Jesus is seen standing in the stream wearing a loincloth and John the Baptist wearing his characteristic camel skin is pouring water from a small bowl onto the head of Jesus. Near by are some angels and to one side are some more men lining up for the baptismal ritual. John the Baptist is a wild man who lives in the desert and survives on honey and locusts. All around are the rocky crags. We are in the midst of uncompromising nature here and nature is blessing this realisation with water, the life-giving water. This point of realisation is also a point of dedication, from here there is no turning back. Jesus knows now that he is the son of God and that all men are the sons of God. The divinity of humanity is clear and compassion is the only response. There is no turning back now from the ordeal of spiritual death which precedes the rebirth into full wisdom and compassion. . This could be seen as analogous to our ordination ceremony with it’s symbolism of water and emphasis on compassionate activity. There may be no turning back but there are plenty of obstacles still to be overcome. The temptation of Jesus in the wilderness is an obvious symbol of the doubt that arises during bleak periods when the springs of inspiration seem to have run dry and the call of the mundane becomes more strident and seductive. I don't immediately recall any paintings of this. Following on from the realisation and dedication represented by the baptism is the attempt to communicate and befriend. If John Middleton Murry's "Life of Jesus" is to be believed, then Jesus would appear to have been singularly unsuccessful in this respect. However viewed more symbolically this is the will-to-the-Ideal gathering its previously fragmented forces into a concentrated whole. This happens in the realm of the imagination through story, myth, symbol and miracle. The apostles are often depicted as frightened and stupid and the overcoming of these fears and this ignorance is the almost impossible task of the spiritual aspirant. The final victory is much later when after the resurrection the Holy Spirit descends upon the apostles. Having gathered disciples, eventually Jesus enters Jerusalem riding on a donkey, his disciples strewing his path with palm leaves. The donkey is an interesting feature which crops up in some of the images of Christ's life. The donkey is there in the stable at the birth, the donkey carries the mother and infant into Egypt and the donkey carries Jesus to his final destiny in Jerusalem. The donkey is often thought of as a stupid animal, bottom of the animal hierarchy. The donkey is animal as archetype. And Jesus is wedded to the donkey from his birth until his death. Man is animal as well as divinity and the animal cannot be jettisoned prematurely without damage to the human and therefore to the divine. Man approaches his divinity perched on the shoulders of his animal nature. The entrance into Jerusalem on the back of the donkey is a parody of a triumphal entry into the city. The spiritual ego is ego still and this self mockery begins to dissolve its conceit. Jesus is now at the point where he is inviting the betrayal. The will-to-the-Ideal is almost ready to give way to the Ideal. And so we come to another pivotal moment in the life of any spiritual aspirant when the urge to run away is overcome and the lower self is finally and fully betrayed. There is no more hankering after worldly security or worldly recognition, no more comfort seeking, no more avoidance of the truth. Now the absolute necessity of spiritual death is faced squarely and accepted fully, a cheek is proffered to Judas for the kiss that seals the fate of egotism. The kiss of Judas is truly a kiss of spiritual friendship. When we have our own best interests at heart, our spiritual interests, we will betray our mundane seeking after careers, family, and security and hand over all our talents to the transcendental pursuit. I've already mentioned the Last Supper and Andrea Del Sarto's wonderful fresco. This is where Jesus announces his betrayal. There has to be full awareness of a momentous step like this. In fact Jesus has mentioned his betrayal before on the road to Jerusalem, so it is a fully premeditated step. He also predicts another betrayal, Peter will deny him before the third cock-crow. This is a lonely path because no-one can do it for you or with you. This is the great act of personal responsibility which leads to the transcendence of the personal. Peter's denial indicates the profound difference that a "turning about in the deepest seat of consciousness" makes to our identity. No aspect of our previous personality can testify for us and say " I know him". A transformed consciousness at this level is unrecognisable to its previous self. Another image that many artists have depicted is Jesus praying in the garden at Gethsemane. There are examples by Bellini and Mantegna in the National Gallery. Jesus is seen praying ,with angels hovering about and his companions have fallen asleep. In the distance can be seen the Roman soldiers coming to arrest him, accompanied by Judas. The frightened uncomprehending aspects of the psyche have fallen asleep, and what is active now is the aspiration and the willingness to do what is necessary to realise that aspiration. The will-to-the-Ideal is at the height of its powers and fully prepared for the great act of transcendence. "Take this cup from me" could be read in two ways. Either it is one more attempt by the ego to escape its chosen fate or it is an offer to all and sundry to follow and by ' taking the cup' to also enter on the path to spiritual death and reawakening. Humiliation is the next phase of the spiritual journey. According to the Diamond Sutra "those sons and daughters of good family, who will take up these very Sutras, and will bear them in mind, recite and study them, they will be humbled, well humbled they will be!" This is the process of purification that cleanses us of all selfishness. Jesus is taunted and mocked. There is a rather haunting image of this painted by Fra Angelico on the wall of one of the cells in San Marcos. You see Jesus blindfolded and disembodied hands and faces are mocking him. Because of the way it is painted this looks more like an internal process than an historic event. The ego is humiliated by its distance from the Ideal and this humiliation can, for a time, blind us to everything else, including the Ideal. We become immersed in our own suffering. The final mockery is the crowning with the crown of thorns, a crude parody of kingship, like the triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of the ass. Self is always asserted as central and when a higher perspective is brought to bear this centrality is shown up as completely absurd. We are not the centre of the Universe, usually we more resemble an idiot sitting on the highest peak of a dung heap, grinning complacently at his own cleverness. Pontius Pilate washes his hands of responsibility for the death of Jesus. This is not a death that is caused by external forces. This is a death that has a momentum and inevitability that was set in motion by that first great eruption of vision symbolised by the Annunciation. Spiritual death is an inevitable stage of spiritual life. The Crucifixion is one of the most common images of Christianity and unfortunately one of the most literalised. It has been used so often down the ages to induce guilt and terror that it is very difficult to see it afresh as an image that graphically and uncompromisingly shows a spiritual truth. After nineteen years of Buddhist practice I do now feel able to take a fresh look at this image and its message. Perhaps Raphael's painting in the National Gallery is a good one to look at in order to get a sense of the symbolism of this image. Raphael's crucifix and landscape are sufficiently stylised to abort any attempts at literalism. One might feel that if spiritual death is to be symbolically represented it could just as well be shown by an old man dying at home in his bed. But if we think about it we can see that the death of a criminal is a very suitable image for the final demise of self-centred egotism and all the ignorance, greed and hatred that that implies. Before his death, Christ cries out, "my God, why hast thou forsaken me". Any one who tries to live according to spiritual values will know that hidden in the recesses of the mind is a desire for reward, which can turn into resentment or envy at the sight of others, less spiritual, getting what they want and being happy. There is no reward for the self or ego at the end of the spiritual path. The kingdom of heaven is not a place but a state of mind free from ego-centred craving, hatred and ignorance. The next great image that the artists have expended their talents on is the Deposition; Christ being taken down from the Cross. I particularly like Fra Angelico's painting of this which hangs in San Marcos. This is not a painting about death or even about grieving. This is a painting about love. It is the love in the faces of the people around Christ's body and their tenderness and care which most strongly comes across. And this seems to me to be perfectly correct in terms of the symbolism of this whole cycle of images. The spiritual death gives rise to love and compassion and the totally relaxed body of the dead man is symbolic of the end of the great spiritual struggle. No more effort is required now, the rest is an unfolding of reality undistorted by ego-centredness. The Entombment is like the period of rest and absorption that follows any momentous event. Then the Resurrection is usually shown as an open tomb with an angel sitting on the edge of it; only the divine aspect is present now. Another image the artists have delighted in is 'Doubting Thomas'. This should have been taken as a warning against literalism whereas in fact it has been interpreted as meaning the opposite. Caravaggio's painting, in the Uffizi, captures the childishness of this kind of literalism which unfortunately has been such a dominating influence in Christianity for centuries. Indeed it would appear that Jesus was beset by literal-minded people from the very beginning who mistook spiritual truth for mundane truth. This applied even to his closest disciples, whom he reprimanded by saying "you know not what you ask". It is perhaps because of this tendency to literalism, which seems to be a tendency of the human mind everywhere, that the Crucifixion has become a more central and defining image in Christianity than the Resurrection. Notwithstanding this, the Resurrection is the more significant event, spiritually speaking. It is with the Resurrection that the will-to-the-Ideal becomes the Ideal; the dualism of path and goal are overcome and this spiritual vision is given form in the images of the Ascension and the beautiful and climactic scene of the Coronation of the Virgin. Before that the complete transformation of the psyche is further emphasised by the symbolic representations of the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles. Where there was fear and confusion there is now courage and the urge to compassionate communication. This scene is usually depicted with the apostles looking up, tongues of flame dancing on their heads and above the dove emitting golden light rays. Fire is often symbolic of transformation and energy and the dove is compassion. The Ascension shows Jesus ascending into heaven in a blaze of glory and jubilant angels. This is the inevitable consequence of spiritual death and rebirth. Spontaneous entry into a heavenly or divine state of being arises in dependence upon spiritual death and rebirth. When I visited Florence a few years ago I particularly enjoyed and felt uplifted by a painting in the Uffizi called the 'Coronation of the Virgin' by Fra Angelico. And again on my recent visit this painting give me great delight. It seemed to me that this was the image which represented the climax of what I will call symbolic Christianity. Here amidst an ascending host of saints and angels, a beautiful young Jesus is shown placing a crown on the head of a beautiful young Virgin Mary. Will and Vision have come together in a union that acknowledges the supreme importance of Vision. Spiritual imagination is crowned Queen of Heaven in a symbolic integration of the energy and vision that makes spiritual life possible. There is a transformation here that tells of the constant creativity of visionary activity that ensues from spiritual maturity. Here is an image of joy, hope and great beauty that can lighten the steps of any spiritual aspirant with eyes to see. The painting which spoke to me most directly and most forcefully on this trip to Florence was "The Madonna of the Magnificat" by Botticelli. In this painting , which is a tondo, the Madonna is seated with the infant sitting on her lap facing forward. She is about to write and an angel is holding the ink-pot for her. Her other hand is touching the infant's hand which is holding half a pomegranate. Two more angels hold a crown above the Madonna's head. The opened pomegranate usually represents the Passion of Christ yet to come, in other words it presages the Crucifixion. In the Renaissance the pomegranate was also associated with the apple eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden , an association with wisdom. Writing indicates communication. The painting seems to sum up the whole message of symbolic Christianity and is very beautifully composed and painted. The infant is gazing upwards to the angels and the Crown. The beginning and the end are shown in relation to each other and the spiritual death is symbolised by a fruit, because it is the most fruitful of deaths. I stood before this painting with joy and laughter welling up in me and felt uplifted and inspired by its beauty and its message. Having recently had a brief sojourn in a little spiritual desert, my own spiritual quest was invigorated by this encounter. This painting and the whole cycle of images I had been engaged with seemed to answer questions about the spiritual path on an imaginative level that I had been unable to unravel conceptually.It was as if I had stepped through a doorway into a different realm where the questions that had been bothering me were no longer relevant .I also realised that I was fully free of the Christian indoctrination which had played such a large part in my early years and felt grateful to Buddhism for helping me to understand the spiritual significance of images which were so much part of my cultural inheritance. I thought of what Dr. Edward Conze is reported to have said about the Buddhist monks of Sri Lanka; that they were like monkeys sitting on a treasure and I reflected ruefully that the adults of my own childhood in Catholic Ireland were perhaps similarly positioned. I hope that this essay, which is very much my personal response to Christian images in art, may help you to discover your own treasures.
